Menu

Category Archives: Alchemy

In ‘A fragment of Life’ (1922) Athur Machen expounds one of his major themes- the transmutation of the mundane world into a place of wonder through the perception of a spiritually aware observer. The story opens with a juxtaposition of the protagonist Edward Darnell’s dream of ‘an ancient wood’ with the ‘varnish of the new furniture’ in his suburban home.

‘Edward Darnell awoke from a dream of an ancient wood, and of a clear well rising into grey film and vapour beneath a misty, glimmering heat; and as his eyes opened he saw the sunlight bright in the room, sparkling on the varnish of the new furniture’.

Machen also contrasts Darnell’s spiritual journey through surroundings perceived though a nascent higher consciousness with a routine bus journey to his place of work in ‘the city.’

‘Yes, I think every journey was a success. Of course, I didn’t go so far afield every day; I was too tired. Often I rested all day long, and went out in the evening, after the lamps were lit, and then only for a mile or two. I would roam about old, dim squares, and hear the wind from the hills whispering in the trees; and when I knew I was within call of some great glittering street, I was sunk in the silence of ways where I was almost the only passenger, and the lamps were so few and faint that they seemed to give out shadows instead of light. And I would walk slowly, to and fro, perhaps for an hour at a time, in such dark streets, and all the time I felt what I told you about its being my secret—that the shadow, and the dim lights, and the cool of the evening, and trees that were like dark low clouds were all mine, and mine alone, that I was living in a world that nobody else knew of, into which no one could enter.’

‘But in spite of these distractions he fell into a dream as the ‘bus rolled and tossed on its way Citywards, and still he strove to solve the enigma of his vigil of the night before, and as the shapes of trees and green lawns and houses passed before his eyes, and as he saw the procession moving on the pavement, and while the murmur of the streets sounded in his ears, all was to him strange and unaccustomed, as if he moved through the avenues of some city in a foreign land’.

Despite his limitations Darnell becomes aware of a greater reality than that of mere ‘common sense’

‘It was, perhaps, on these mornings, as he rode to his mechanical work, that vague and floating fancies that must have long haunted his brain began to shape themselves, and to put on the form of definite conclusions, from which he could no longer escape, even if he had wished it. Darnell had received what is called a sound commercial education, and would therefore have found very great difficulty in putting into articulate speech any thought that was worth thinking; but he grew certain on these mornings that the ‘common sense’ which he had always heard exalted as man’s supremest faculty was, in all probability, the smallest and least-considered item in the equipment of an ant of average intelligence’.

Machen describes life as a kind of pilgrimage- condemning a modern world which through concentration on the mundane aspects of life means that ‘a race of pilgrims had become hereditary stone-breakers and ditch-scourers on a track that led to destruction’

‘Life, it seemed to him, was a great search for—he knew not what; and in the process of the ages one by one the true marks upon the ways had been shattered, or buried, or the meaning of the words had been slowly forgotten; one by one the signs had been turned awry, the true entrances had been thickly overgrown, the very way itself had been diverted from the heights to the depths, till at last the race of pilgrims had become hereditary stone-breakers and ditch-scourers on a track that led to destruction—if it led anywhere at all. Darnell’s heart thrilled with a strange and trembling joy, with a sense that was all new, when it came to his mind that this great loss might not be a hopeless one, that perhaps the difficulties were by no means insuperable. It might be, he considered, that the stone-breaker had merely to throw down his hammer and set out, and the way would be plain before him; and a single step would free the delver in rubbish from the foul slime of the ditch’.

The work ends with an epiphany as Darnell realises that that the mundane world is an illusion and the ‘ancient wood’ of his opening dream is a hidden reality.

‘So I awoke from a dream of a London suburb, of daily labour, of weary, useless little things; and as my eyes were opened I saw that I was in an ancient wood, where a clear well rose into grey film and vapour beneath a misty, glimmering heat. And a form came towards me from the hidden places of the wood, and my love and I were united by the well.’

Arthur Machen (1863–1947) is one of a number of writers of fantastic fiction such as Charles Williams (1886-1945) whose spirituality permeates their work. Like Williams Machen combines a mystical Christianity with an interest in esoteric practices. This includes the practice of spiritual alchemy which underwent a revival in the writer’s formative years in the nineteenth century through the publication of such works as Mary Ann Attwood’s ‘A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery’ (1850) Ethan Allen Hitchcock’s ‘Remarks Upon Alchymists’ (1855) and ‘The Hermetic Museum’ (1893) by A. E. Waite. Machen wrote of his interest in spiritual alchemy in the first volume of his biography ‘Far Off Things’ (1922) in which he claimed to have first heard of alchemy in a family magazine.

“…you would expect to find good things of all sorts in a magazine edited by Charles Dickens, but you would hardly expect to find there the curious thing or the out-of-the-way thing. Still, it was in a volume of “Household Words” that I first read about alchemy in a short series of papers which (I have since recognised) were singularly well-informed and enlightened. I do not wish it to be understood that I myself have any strong convictions on the matter of turning inferior metals into superior, though I believe the later trend of science is certainly in favour of the theoretical possibility of such a process. Nor do I hold any distinct brief for the very fascinating doctrine which maintains, or would like to maintain, that the great alchemical books are really symbolical books; that while seeming to relate to lead and gold, to mercury and silver, they hide under these figures intimations as to a profound and ineffable transmutation of the spirit; that the experiment to which they relate is the Great Experiment of the mystics, which is the experiment of God. This, I say, is a fascinating theory; whether it have any truth in it I know not, and perhaps it is one of those questions of which Sir Thomas Browne speaks; questions difficult, indeed, and perplexed, but not beyond all conjecture. But, however this may be, I recollect that those articles in that old, half-calf bound volume of “Household Words,” while not affirming this, that, or the other doctrine as to alchemy in so many distinct words, did suggest that a few of the old alchemists, at all events, were something more than blundering simpletons engaged on a quest which was a patent absurdity, which could only have been entertained by the besotted superstition of “the dark ages,” which had this one claim to our attention inasmuch as the modern science of chemistry rose from the ashes of its foolish fires”.

“To the lovers in Mr. Stephen Phillips’s drama of “Paolo and Francesca” the earth appears a greener green, the heavens a bluer blue; all beautiful things are raised to a higher power by the fire of their passion; the whole world is alchemised. And this state, which is a result of love, is the condition of imaginative work in literature, and so the man who is to make romances sees everything and feels everything acutely, or, as Mr. Masefield says, excessively. Now there would be nothing amiss in this state of things if these exalted and intensified perceptions could be utilised when there was a question of making a book and then abrogated and laid aside with pen and ink and paper. Unluckily, however, this cannot be so managed; and too often the dealer in dreams finds that his magic magnifying glass is tight fixed to his eyes and cannot be moved. And thus a mere common bore or nuisance appears to him as dreadful as Nero or Heliogabalus, the possibility of missing a train is as tragical as “Hamlet,” and the pettiest griefs swell into the hugest sorrows”

Several passages in his semi-autobiographical work ‘The Hill of Dreams’ (1907) also make extended reference to spiritual alchemy including a comparison of the work of the artist to that of the alchemist: transmuting the base metal of experience into the gold of art.

“Often he spent the night in the cool court of his villa, lying amidst soft cushions heaped upon the marble bench. A lamp stood on the table at his elbow, its light making the water in the cistern twinkle. There was no sound in the court except the soft continual plashing of the fountain. Throughout these still hours he would meditate, and he became more than ever convinced that man could, if he pleased, become lord of his own sensations. This, surely, was the true meaning concealed under the beautiful symbolism of alchemy. Some years before he had read many of the wonderful alchemical books of the later Middle Ages, and had suspected that something other than the turning of lead into gold was intended. This impression was deepened when he looked into Lumen de Lumine by Vaughan, the brother of the Silurist, and he had long puzzled himself in the endeavor to find a reasonable interpretation of the hermetic mystery, and of the red powder, “glistening and glorious in the sun.” And the solution shone out at last, bright and amazing, as he lay quiet in the court of Avallaunius. He knew that he himself had solved the riddle, that he held in his hand the powder of projection, the philosopher’s stone transmuting all it touched to fine gold; the gold of exquisite impressions. He understood now something of the alchemical symbolism; the crucible and the furnace, the “Green Dragon,” and the “Son Blessed of the Fire” had, he saw, a peculiar meaning. He understood, too, why the uninitiated were warned of the terror and danger through which they must pass; and the vehemence with which the adepts disclaimed all desire for material riches no longer struck him as singular. The wise man does not endure the torture of the furnace in order that he may be able to compete with operators in pork and company promoters; neither a steam yacht, nor a grouse-moor, nor three liveried footmen would add at all to his gratifications. Again Lucian said to himself: “Only in the court of Avallaunius is the true science of the exquisite to be found.”

“He saw the true gold into which the beggarly matter of existence may be transmuted by spagyric art; a succession of delicious moments, all the rare flavors of life concentrated, purged of their lees, and preserved in a beautiful vessel. The moonlight fell green on the fountain and on the curious pavements, and in the long sweet silence of the night he lay still and felt that thought itself was an acute pleasure, to be expressed perhaps in terms of odor or color by the true artist”.

“They were good nights to remember, these; he was glad to think of the little ugly room, with its silly wall-paper and its “bird’s-eye” furniture, lighted up, while he sat at the bureau and wrote on into the cold stillness of the London morning, when the flickering lamplight and the daystar shone together. It was an interminable labor, and he had always known it to be as hopeless as alchemy. The gold, the great and glowing masterpiece, would never shine amongst the dead ashes and smoking efforts of the crucible, but in the course of the life, in the interval between the failures, he might possibly discover curious things”.

“He had fallen into the habit of always using this phrase “the work” to denote the adventure of literature; it had grown in his mind to all the austere and grave significance of “the great work” on the lips of the alchemists; it included every trifling and laborious page and the vague magnificent fancies that sometimes hovered below him. All else had become mere by-play, unimportant, trivial; the work was the end, and the means and the food of his life—it raised him up in the morning to renew the struggle, it was the symbol which charmed him as he lay down at night. All through the hours of toil at the bureau he was enchanted, and when he went out and explored the unknown coasts, the one thought allured him, and was the colored glass between his eyes and the world”.

In ‘The Great Return’ (1915) the writer refers to experience of the supernatural as being like passing ‘through the Furnace of the Sages, governed with Wisdom that the alchemists know’.

“And thus the sailors; and thus their tales are incredible; but they are not incredible. I believe that men of the highest eminence in physical science have testified to the occurrence of phenomena every whit as marvellous, to things as absolutely opposed to all natural order, as we conceive it; and it may be said that nobody minds them. “That sort of thing has always been happening,” as my friend remarked to me. But the men, whether or no the fire had ever been without them, there was no doubt that it was now within them, for it burned in their eyes. They were purged as if they had passed through the Furnace of the Sages, governed with Wisdom that the alchemists know. They spoke without much difficulty of what they had seen, or had seemed to see, with their eyes, but hardly at all of what their hearts had known when for a moment the glory of the fiery rose had been about them”.

In ‘The Secret Glory’ (1922) Machen writes of the visit of the ‘Arabic Alchemist’ to the court of Caliph Haroun.

“…I once read of the Arabic Alchemist. He came to the Caliph Haroun with a strange and extravagant proposal…The Commander of the Faithful was to gather together all the wealth of his entire kingdom, omitting nothing that could possibly be discovered; and while this was being done the magician said that he would construct a furnace of peculiar shape in which all these splendours and magnificences and treasures of the world must be consumed in a certain fire of art, prepared with wisdom. And at last, he continued, after the operation had endured many days, the fire being all the while most curiously governed, there would remain but one drop no larger than a pearl, but glorious as the sun to the moon and all the starry heavens and the wonders of the compassionate; and with this drop the Caliph Haroun might heal all the sorrows of the universe”.

“…to forget the eternal reasons is the cause of the departure of the soul from the Gods, and to recall the knowledge of the eternal reasons or Ideas is the cause of the return to them…” ~ Proclus Filed under: Uncategorized

“…it is a most refined view of creation which sees the many as many but at the same time sees that there is one common nature within all things; that they have received this nature from a single source; and that through this nature they are able to lead to single end”. – Marsilio FicinoFiled […]

“Plotinus holds that all souls must be separable from bodies, with the sole exception of the universal soul from the universal body;for all bodies are in flux and perish able, except the one body of all, in its totality, which is eternal. What then in respect of souls, he asks (vi. 4, 16), is the […]

You have spoken of “first patterns”- of images without existence save in the soul of the carver, but which he transmutes into matter, making them visible. So that before long such a carver’s shapes can be seen, and so obtain their formal reality, they are there already as forms within his soul. And this same […]

Interesting Links

Friends of Arthur Machen
The Friends of Arthur Machen grew out of the remains of the British Arthur Machen Society, which was originally formed in the 1980s. The current membership of the Friends is very diverse, reflecting the very diverse currents which have drawn it together.

Internet Sacred Texts Archive
A freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language.

Mythopoeic Society
A non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of members of the informal Oxford literary circle known as the “Inklings.”

The Charles Williams Society
The Charles Williams Society exists to promote the study and appreciation of the life and writings of Charles Walter Stansby Williams, a poet, novelist, and lay theologian.

Weird fiction is increasingly international even as it returns to traditional themes and concerns. It was not so long ago that Finnish fiction from authors such as Leena Krohn, Johanna Sinisalo, and Jyrki Vainonen became prominent in English-language discussions of the weird. WorldCon 75 is being held this August in Helsinki. There exists a palpable […] Dyst […]

We are back and shaking things up a little in this read-along. As I began reading further and further into the collection, I found I wasn’t reacting to the individual story, so much, as reacting to patterns and themes that were building upon each tale. So, since we are two thirds through, I thought I’d […] Hyenas, Horses, and Rabbits, Oh My! Part II appeared […]

Today we’re featuring a story from the 2017 anthology, Shadows and Tall Trees 7, the seventh entry in the acclaimed series of all-original weird fiction from Undertow Publications. Alison Moore’s first novel, The Lighthouse, won the McKitterick Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Awards. Reviewing her latest novel, Death […]

The following story appears in the collection Spells by Michel de Ghelderode, out this year from Wakefield Press. It is translated from French by George MacLennan. Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) was a Belgian author of drama, poetry, and short stories. Born to a royal archivist father and devoutly religious mother, the author began writing plays in 1916. […]

Spells from Wakefield Press collects thirteen tales by Michel de Ghelderode, best known as a prolific dramatist, and includes work that has been anthologized alongside other such luminaries of the Weird as Jean Ray and Jean Muno. Each tale contains some unique take on the idea of “spells,” often with a focus on the realistic […] Review: “Spells” by Michel d […]

What follows is an excerpt from Desirina Boskovich’s debut novella Never Now Always out June 27th from Broken Eye Books. Boskovich’s short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, F&SF, Kaleidotrope, PodCastle, Drabblecast, and anthologies such as Aliens: Recent Encounters, The Apocalypse Triptych and Tomorrow’s Cthulhu. Her non […]

Fans of Leonora Carrington’s weird and fantastic fiction had their wishes met last April. In celebration of the Surrealist’s centennial (she would have been 100 on April 6th), the literary world has come together to bring most of her catalog back in print, alongside a new evaluation of her life. In the U.S., Dorothy, A […] Hyenas, Horses, and Rabbits, Oh My! […]

The following is an excerpt from the 2017 novel Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown […] Excerpt from the Novel “Borne” ap […]

This interview originally appeared in Gulf Coast magazine on April 28. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. Author Jeff VanderMeer’s newest novel Borne (FSG, out April 25th) has been named one of the most anticipated of 2017 by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and others. Colson Whitehead writes, “Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach […] Int […]

One thing that’s fascinating about Jeff VanderMeer’s 2017 novel Borne is the weird artwork the novel has inspired: from a wordcut of Mord above the ruined city to a sculpture of Borne to colorful illustrations of the dead astronaut and foxes. We wanted to compile a gallery of some of the pieces of art to highlight […] “Borne” Artwork appeared first on Weird […]